


aloft the night

by renecdote



Series: hc_bingo 2020 [4]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: (It's okay he gets one), Angst, Daniel needs a hug, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s04e18 The Light, Gen, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27785908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: He can picture the look on Jack’s face when he pulled Daniel off the balcony so clearly. And he knows Jack was—is—worried about him.Honestly, Daniel is a little worried about himself.Episode coda for The Light. Jack and Daniel (sort of) talk about what almost happened and other angsty mental health things.
Relationships: Daniel Jackson & Jack O'Neill
Series: hc_bingo 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799395
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	aloft the night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [areth_lovejoy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/areth_lovejoy/gifts).



> Written as a thank you for @brambleberrycottage for their donation to help out a friend in need. More info can be found on my [tumblr](https://renecdote.tumblr.com/post/635462209119698944/donation-fics).
> 
> This fic also fills my hurt/comfort bing square 'asking for helping'.
> 
> TW for (vague) discussion of suicide attempt, depression, other associated things.
> 
> Title from a [poem](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44468/bright-star-would-i-were-stedfast-as-thou-art) by John Keats.

He won’t admit it, but Daniel is scared to leave the sanctuary of the palace at first. Not of what’s out there—there’s nothing but sand and water for miles—but of what is inside him. He can still remember the way his mood had plummeted, the hollowness in his chest that felt so real it hurt, the weight that seemed to press down on every inch of him until he slipped into the fog crowding his brain and stopped feeling any of it. He remembers thinking about Sha’re and Shifu and SG-1. His parents, too. But most of all he remembers thinking about nothing, blinking at his window and finding night had fallen while he’d been sitting on the couch staring into space.

He doesn’t remember deciding to climb out onto the balcony halfway through making tea. That’s even more frightening. Seeing Jack had been like waking from a dream, still fuzzy, still on the edge between asleep and awake, existing in that blurry state between real and not real.

He told Hammond he doesn’t remember any of it.

He wishes he didn’t.

—//—

It takes a week for the confines of the palace to win out over the burning coals of anxiety.

Daniel doesn’t go far, just out of the cavernous building and down to the water’s edge. He stands there for a moment, watching gentle waves roll along the shore. He’s not sure what he’s waiting for, just that he’s waiting, and when nothing happens except the coming and going of the tide, he lets himself sink down into the sand.

It’s strange, how even something as ordinary as sand can feel so alien on another planet. Daniel rubs the grains between his fingers. It’s harsher against his skin than he remembers sand being. He digs his hands in deeper. The sand that was everywhere on the planet where Sha’re died was fine, it’s colour the palest gold. He was finding it in his clothes, his hair, even his office, for weeks afterwards. Traces over her—her death—that he couldn’t escape.

Not that he wanted to, not really, he didn’t want to forget her, of course he didn’t, he just wanted—

He just wanted her back.

And if he couldn’t have that, why couldn’t it at least _mean something_?

Daniel isn’t surprised when Jack sits down beside him, mirroring the way he is sitting with his arms draped over his knees. Jack has been circling around him since they got back here, always there but very carefully not hovering. _Too_ carefully; like Daniel could turn to glass and shatter at any moment. It makes his skin crawl. He is sure that Jack is seeing the balcony every time he looks at him and he hates it.

“Hey,” Jack says, a few beats too late to be causal.

Daniel glances at him. “Hey.”

They sit in silence for a while. Daniel has never been bothered by silences. He craves them, usually, needing the solace of quiet rooms filled with only his own thoughts and the rustle of turning pages. He’s not sure he trusts his own thoughts at the moment though, not certain where he ends and the effects of the strange Goa’uld drug begin. He looks down, fingers searching through the sand for hidden treasures until they find a rock, smooth and flat, one edge jagged like it’s been broken. He tosses it into the water, just for something to do.

Jack shifts beside him, exhale almost a sigh before he breaks the silence. “I know I’m not good with words—that’s what we pay you for.” His lips quirk a little before falling into seriousness again. “But if you ever need to talk, about anything...”

Daniel tosses another stone and watches it skip three times. “We don’t have to do this,” he says.

Jack is nothing if not stubborn though. “I’m serious, Daniel. I know things have been… You know, with Sha’re and... and everything. It hasn’t been an easy year. If you ever want to talk, I’m here.”

Daniel can’t help smiling, faint though it is. The fumbling words are just so... so Jack. He’s not as bad with words as he thinks he is, not when it counts, but he can never quite scrub the stumbling uncertainty from his voice. He means it though. Daniel knows he does.

It would be so easy to be honest.

It would be so hard to take it back.

Daniel has never been shy about talking about his feelings, not with Jack, but this is... this is more than feelings. This is the weight of existence pressing in on him, the heart-wrenching incongruity between how heavy it feels and how empty it looks.

He picks up another stone to toss so he doesn’t have to look at Jack when he says, “I know. I’m fine, though. Really. It was just the light—the chemical reaction.”

“Right.” Jack drags the word out slightly. “Okay.”

He picks up a rock of his own and sends it arching over the water before it hits with a splash.

Daniel isn’t sure where they’re supposed to go from here.

“We should probably head back,” Jack says after a while, looking back up at the palace.

Daniel sighs. When he’d been here with SG-5, he didn’t think he’d ever get sick of uncovering the secrets the ancient building had to offer. Now that the freedom to leave at any time has been taken away, he’s starting to go crazy staring at the same walls every day.

Jack stands, brushing sand off his pants, then holds out a hand to Daniel. “Come on,” he says. “Before Carter starts to worry.”

Carter. Right.

He can picture the look on Jack’s face when he pulled Daniel off the balcony so clearly. And he knows Jack was— _is_ —worried about him.

Honestly, Daniel is a little worried about himself.

Not because he wanted to jump off that balcony; he didn’t—or, he doesn’t think he did. He just... He just wanted to stop feeling like he was drowning, fighting against a current that kept dragging him further down, no matter how hard or fast or in which direction he tried to swim.

He’s so tired of swimming.

He was never particularly good at it.

“Jack.”

Daniel stops. He has to take a breath, count the seconds in and out, before he can make himself go on. He wants to let it all out, but he doesn’t want Jack to know badly he’s been coping. He doesn’t want to… Jack shouldn’t have to deal with that.

Daniel doesn’t even want to deal with it.

But Jack is here. Offering. Practically begging Daniel to just _talk to him_. He sits back down, close enough for their shoulders to touch this time. Daniel wonders whether it’s intentional. Probably. Probably not.

Probably.

“Daniel?” Jack prompts into the stretching silence.

Daniel takes another breath. “It’s not just the light,” he admits. “Even before, ever since Sha’re—I mean before that, too, but really since then—it’s like everything has been going wrong. Nothing I do is good enough and the bad stuff just keeps piling up and—”

Jack pulls him into a hug and Daniel is so startled he breaks off. He feels jittery and off balance, like he’s spinning away from himself, held together only by the arms wrapped like iron around his shoulders. He puts his head down, doesn’t care that his glasses are digging uncomfortably into his nose, and curls his hands into the back of Jack’s jacket.

“I know,” Jack is saying. ”It’s okay, I know.”

And yeah, Daniel realises, he probably does. Out of them of them—Jack is the one who is most likely to know exactly how he’s feelings.

“You scared me,” Jack admits.

“Sorry.” Daniel feels choked. His eyes are hot, teary, but he doesn’t cry. He’s not sure he could cry even if he wanted to; he’s that kind of emotional, a frustrating tangle of too much and too little.

“No.” Jack hugs him tighter. “No, don’t be sorry. _I’m_ sorry. I should have noticed, should have done something—”

“It was some weird Goa'uld drug withdrawal, you couldn’t have—”

Jack just shakes his head; Daniel feels it more than sees it. “I thought you were okay. I should have asked—I should have made sure.”

Daniel bites his lip. “I’m not sure I would have told you that I wasn’t.”

The words sit heavy between them.

“You told me now,” Jack says eventually.

Something in his voice—something uncharacteristically unsure—makes Daniel feel almost guilty. He is quick to reassure. “Yeah, I did.”

Eventually, the hug starts to feel more awkward than comforting and Daniel pulls away. Jack reluctantly lets him.

“Feel better?” he asks.

Daniel wipes his eyes with a corner of his sleeve, grimacing at the feeling of sand scratching against his face despite his efforts, then he readjusts his glasses. “Um. Not really.”

He feels... less, maybe, but not better. It’s a hollow kind of feeling. Like he picked away at the darkness but instead of filling the space back in, it’s just been taped over, held together by plastic adhesive and faint hope.

Maybe that’s something, though, that there’s hope.

“But I will,” he adds, and some of the worry lines around Jack’s mouth smooth away.

“You will,” he says firmly, colonel voice in full effect, like he can make it so with just a declaration.

It would be nice, if it was that easy.

“And if you’re ever not—”

Daniels smile feels a bit more real this time. “I know.”

They stay sitting on the beach, watching the waves lap against the shore, until Carter comes out and yells for them to come have dinner. Then Jack stands up and, this time, Daniel lets himself be pulled to his feet as well.

“Jack—” He catches his Jack’s arm, holding them in that moment on the beach for a minute longer, because there’s one more thing he needs to say. Something important. Something he probably should have said days ago. “Thank you.”

Jack nods. He doesn’t ask what for and Daniel doesn’t have to say _everything_.

“Anytime,” he replies, and Daniel knows he means it.


End file.
